Brooke Boothby
Sir Brooke Boothby, 6th Baronet (3 June 1744 - 23 January 1824)George Edward Cokayne, editor, The Complete Baronetage, 5 volumes (no date (c. 1900); reprint, Gloucester, U.K.: Alan Sutton Publishing, 1983), volume III, page 83. was an English poet, linguist, translator, and landowner. Life Boothby was born in 1744. He inherited his unusual forename from Hill Brooke, the second wife of the fourth Baronet Boothby, of Broadlow Ash, Sir William. Brooke Boothby is sometimes referred to as the 7th Baronet, as there was some confusion over the appointment of the first Baronet. He was educated at St John's College, Cambridge, matriculating in 1761. He was part of the intellectual and literary circle of Lichfield, which included Anna Seward and Erasmus Darwin. Boothby was active as an associate of the scientific group, the Lunar Society, which was interested in the application of the sciences to modern life and its development, and the Lichfield Botanical Society. He, members of the Lunar Society and the intellectual circle of Lichfield, met the free-thinking Jean-Jacques Rousseau who fled from France in 1766-7 and was staying at Wootton, Staffordshire, near Boothby's home of Ashbourne Hall. . Boothby translated the manuscript and published it in Lichfield in 1780 after the author's death, and donated the document to the British Library in 1781. Ten years later, in 1776, Boothby visited Rousseau in Paris, and was given the manuscript of the first part of Rousseau's three-part autobiographical Confessions. The book was published by Boothby in 1780, after Rousseau's death,in Lichfield by Boothby in the French language uner the title, Dialogues ou Rousseau, Juge de Jean-Jacques. This achievement is immortalised in Joseph Wright of Derby's painting. The portrait shows Boothby reclining by a stream in a wooded glade once known as the Twenty Oaks where he and Rousseau met for discussion and where Rousseau went to write in peace and solitude. He is holding a leather bound book with the name Rousseau on the spine rather than a specific title, thus referencing Boothby's interest in the philosopher's entire oeuvre. The landscape setting can be interpreted as referring to the Rousseauian idea that all of man's troubles and unhappiness derive from his self-removal from the natural world. According to Andrew Graciano, the plants in the setting refer to Boothby's interest in botany and the botanical aspect of the painting has previously been ignored.Andrew Graciano, “Shedding New Botanical Light on Joseph Wright’s Portrait of Brooke Boothby: Rousseauian Pleasure versus Medicinal Utility” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte (3:2004), 365–380. See also Graciano, Joseph Wright, Esq.: Painter and Gentleman (2012). Both Boothby and Rousseau were interested in botany, and Rousseau studied local flora when he lived at Wootton Hall. Two other of Wright's paintings of Dovedale were sold to Brooke Boothby who had helped Wright when he put on the first one-man exhibition in London.Joseph Wright of Derby, Liverpool Museums, accessed 23 October 2011 Boothby also purchased two views of nearby Matlock, two paintings of bridges in Rome as well as the unusual portrait of himself. ]] , The Apotheosis of Penelope Boothby, 1792]] In 1784 Boothby married Susanna Bristoe, daughter of Robert Bristoe and Susanna (Philipson); and in that year he leased Ashbourne Hall from his father, whose extravagance had forced him to live elsewhere whilst renting out the family seat.Eighteenth Century Book Reviews: Jacques Zonneveld. Sir Brooke Boothby: Rousseau's Roving Baronet Friend. Review by JoLynn Edwards accessed 29 May 2008 He began the restoration of Ashbourne Hall, using his wife's dowry to renovate the structure, remodel the parkland, purchase rare plants and obtain works of art. Like his father before him, Boothby was extravagant in the extreme. That weakness and his emotional self-indulgence were to be his nemeses. His only daughter, Penelope, was born in the following April. Sir Joshua Reynold's portrait of Penelope, often called "The Mob Cap", is one of the most famous of English child portraits. Reynolds had painted portraits of Boothby and his younger half-sister Anne. His full sister, Maria, was portrayed by Wright a decade before he painted the famous portrait of Brooke Boothby himself. On 19 March 1791, disaster struck when Boothby's daughter died at the age of 5. This sad event permanently affected him and he subsequently published a book of poetry, Sorrows Sacred to the Memory of Penelope. Penelope had a remarkable tomb constructed for her which included a life-size statue of her sleeping. The tomb is in St. Oswald's Church in Ashbourne along with many other Boothby memorials and graves. Boothby's life went into decline after his daughter's death. He commissioned the sculpture illustrated and the painting by Henry Fuseli. After Penelope's funeral, his wife Susanna returned to her parent's home in Hampshire and settled in Dover. Her death was recorded under her maiden name, Bristoe. Boothby was involved with the substantial purchase of 16th-century stained glass for Lichfield Cathedral in 1801, which he purchased from the Abbey of Herkenrode which had been dissolved in the Napoleonic wars. He sold the glass to the cathedral on a non-profit basis. As a result of his extravagance Boothby met with economic disaster which completely altered the course of his life. Ashbourne Hall was leased in 1814. He settled in diminished circumstances in Boulogne, France, in 1815 and died there in 1824. He was buried in St. Oswald's with his parents and his sister Maria Elizabeth and other Boothby family members. Sonnet XII Well has thy classick chisel, Banks, express'd The graceful lineaments of that fine form, Which late with conscious, living beauty warm, Now here beneath does in dread silence rest. And, oh, while life shall agitate my breast, Recorded there exists her every charm, In vivid colours, safe from change or harm, Till my last sigh unalter'd love attest. That form, as fair as ever fancy drew, The marble cold, inanimate, retains; But of the radiant smile that round her threw Joys, that beguiled my soul of mortal pains, And each divine expression's varying hue, A little senseless dust alone remainsSorrows. Sacred to the Memory of Penelope (1796) Publications Poetry *''Sorrows: Sacred to the memory of Penelope''. London: W. Bulmer, for Cadell & Davies / Edwards / Johnson, 1796. Non-fiction *''Letter to the Right Honourable Edmund Burke''. London: J. Stockdale, 1790; London: J. Debrett, 1791. *''A Vindication of the Revolution Society, against the Calumnies of Mr. Burke''. London: J. Ridgway, 1792. *''Observations on the Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs, and on Mr. Paine's 'Rights of Man', in two parts''. London: J. Stockdale, 1792; Dublin: H. Fitzpatrick, for W. Jones, 1792. Translated *''Fables and Satires''. Edinburgh: George Ramsay, for Constable, Edinburgh / Constable, Hunter, Park, and Hunter, London, 1809. Volume I, Volume II *Jean Racine, Britannicus: A tragedy, in five acts. London: J. Stockdale, 1803. *Molière’s The Misanthrope: Translated in verse (anonymous). Boulogne : Leroy-Berger, 1819.Search results = au:Misanthrope Moliere 1819, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Jan. 22, 2017. Edited *Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Rousseau, Juge de Jean Jacques: Dialogues; d'après le manuscrit de M. Rousseau. Lichfield, UK: privately published, printed by J. Jackson, 1780. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:Brooke Boothby, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Jan. 22, 2017. See also *List of British poets References * A. Graciano, ' "The Book of Nature is Open to All Men": Geology, Mining and History in Joseph Wright’s Derbyshire Landscapes', in The Huntington Library Quarterly; 68: 4 (2005), p. 583–600 * A. Graciano, Joseph Wright, Esq.: Painter and Gentleman (2012; Cambridge Scholars Publishing) * J. Zonneveld, Sir Brooke Boothby - Rousseau's Roving Baronet Friend (2003) * Notes External links ;Poems *Brooke Boothby at Sonnet Central (8 sonnets) ;About *Sir Brooke Boothby at The Peerage *"Sir Brooke Boothby: Rousseau's roving baronet friend" at Eighteenth-Century Book Reviews Online Category:1744 births Category:1824 deaths Category:18th-century English writers Category:Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge Category:Associates of the Lunar Society of Birmingham Category:Baronets in the Baronetage of England Category:English art collectors Category:English landowners Category:English philanthropists Category:English poets Category:French–English translators Category:Paintings by Joseph Wright of Derby Category:People from Ashbourne, Derbyshire Category:Sonneteers Category:English male poets Category:18th-century poets Category:English-language poets Category:Poets